Alif’s ‘Zu Ha Wandai’ is a Pained Song of Longing

Kashmiri singer-songwriter Alif aka Mohammad Muneem Nazir speaks with us from Milwaukee ahead of his new single “Zu Ha Wandai,” an intimate, anguished song that is based around wanting to share one’s soul with another.

Muneem says, “It’s when one human being is talking to another and saying how, in the transaction of anything between two people, what is it that stays? Sometimes, even the act of kissing the forehead just shapes the thing.” With his vocals, the artist took an intentionally lower register for the lyrics we hear in the beginning of the song, to signify how “it’s the easy part of the conversation” whereas the high-pitched vocals appear in the second part of the conversation in the lyrics.

Produced by Alif’s longtime collaborator Aman Moroney, he says the way “Zu Ha Wandai” came together instrumentally was an outcome of “years and years” trust that the two have built. “It was quite incredible how sometimes you don’t have to explain yourself, you just go with the vibe of it,” Muneem says. Drawn to including strings (“because of what they make you feel,” he says), the song closes with one of the most evocative characterizations of solitude and loneliness. He says, “I wanted to have a little feeling of the redundancy of emotion. Like how do you feel less lonely, a little bit more longer, for it to become a solitude?”

The single follows Alif’s collaborative EP with veteran singer Rekha Bhardwaj from 2024, called Ab Mujhe Ishq Karna Aata Hai. Made with lyrics by Siddharth Pandit, Muneem said in an earlier interview that he was “absolutely humbled” to work with Bhardwaj. In the works over the span of four years, Muneem says the EP was all about “how songs and poetry saved me” and was “written out of desperation in order to stay afloat emotionally.”

Muneem points out amid releasing this predominantly Urdu and Hindi language EP, the song “Mirror Mirror On The Wall” had an opening section featuring Kashmiri language, which brought him back to think about releasing “Zu Ha Wandai,” a song in his native language. “The language that you think in, the language that you cry in or feel emotions, is the closest to your heart,” he says.

Alif had one show in New York, but says his trip to the U.S. is also because there’s been some interest in his catalog from labels in that part of the world. He’s aware that it may not be necessarily guided by anyone’s interest in Kashmiri poetry (“This language becomes an instrument, like a saxophone or trumpet or cello solo to [people here],” he says with a laugh), but wants to gauge people’s reactions. There have also been shows in Los Angeles and a benefit concert in Milwaukee – all under the moniker Alif Faqat, which signifies a solo set. “This is exciting for me. I have always enjoyed songs very intimately, because that’s how they’re made – we pick up a guitar and play and that’s how songs get made and then dressed up. That’s the true form of a song,” he says.

Once he’s back in India, Alif is planning an EP tour for Ab Mujhe Ishq Karna Aata Hai with Bhardwaj. “We want to take the songs to the ground and see what happens there. It’s great times,” Muneem adds.